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Letter Regarding Dunmore's Proclamation

from the Virginia Gazette (Dixon and Hunter), November 25, 1775

The second class of people, for whose sake a few remarks upon this
proclamation
seem necessary, is the Negroes. They have been flattered with their
freedom, if they be able to bear arms, and will spedily join Lord Dunmore's
troops. To none then is freedom promised but to such as are able to do Lord
Dunmore service: The aged, the infirm, the women and children, are still
to remain the property of their masters, masters who will be provoked to severity,
should part of their slaves desert them. Lord Dunmore's declaration,
therefore, is a cruel declaration to the Negroes. He does not even pretend to
make it out of any tenderness to them, but solely on his own account; and should
it meet with success, it leaves by far the greater number at the mercy of an
enraged and injured people. But should there be any amongst the Negroes weak
enough to believe that Dunmore intends to do them a kindness, and wicked
enough to provoke the fury of the Americans against their defenceless fathers
and mothers, their wives, their women and children, let them only consider the
difficulty of effecting their escape, and what they must expect to suffer if
they fall into the hands of the Americans. Let them farther consider what must
be their fate, should the English prove conquerors in this dispute. If we can
judge of the future from the past, it will not be much mended. Long have the
Americans, moved by compassion, and actuated by sound policy, endeavoured to
stop the progress of slavery.
Our Assemblies have repeatedly passed acts laying heavy duties upon imported
Negroes, by which they meant altogether to prevent the horrid traffick; but
their humane intentions have been as often frustrated by the cruelty and covetousness
of a set of English merchants, who prevailed upon the King to repeal our kind
and merciful acts, little indeed to the credit of his humanity. Can it then
be supposed that the Negroes will be better used by the English, who have always
encouraged and upheld this slavery, than by their present masters, who pity
their condition, who wish, in general, to make is as easy and comfortable as
possible, and who would willingly, were it in their power, or were they permitted,
not only prevent any more Negroes from losing their freedom, but restore it
to such as have already unhappily lost it. No, the ends of Lord Dunmore and
his party being answered, they will either give up the offending Negroes to
the rigour of the laws they have broken, or sell them in the West Indies, where
every year they sell many thousands of their miserable brethren, to perish either
by the inclemency of the weather, or the cruelty of barbarous masters. Be not
then, ye Negroes, tempted by this proclamation to ruin yourselves. I have given
you a faithful view of what you are to expect; and I declare, before GOD, in
doing it, I have considered your welfare, as well as that of the country. Whether
you will profit by my advice I cannot tell; but this I know, that whether we
suffer or not, if you desert us, you most certainly will.